10F Dadant US poly hive Paradise®

01 · WHAT ARRIVES

Five parts, and the three that do not come

In the box are the 10-frame brood box, the half super, the 41 mm mesh floor with the screen open, the flat roof, stackable and without a feeding cavity, and the sliding entrance reducer. Each box is four tongue-and-groove walls that press together; the plastic profiles the frames rest on slot into their grooves. Frames do not come, neither for the brood box nor for the super, nor spacers nor a feeder. The brand’s 10-litre top feeder doubles as a crown board, and under this flat roof there is no room for a bag of syrup on the top bars.

02 · INSULATION

What the colony gains is energy, not degrees

The wall is extra-hardened expanded polystyrene of over 100 kg/m³, hard polystyrene, and is around 4 cm thick. It insulates both ways: the cluster does not have to tighten as much in winter and the inside does not turn into an oven in August. What is saved is the work of thermoregulating, and the colony puts it into brood. The manufacturer rates it for several decades if it is kept painted. The brood box weighs 2 kg; a 25 mm pine box with its ten frames is around 15.

03 · HOW TO TREAT IT

No metal hive tool, no blowtorch, no solvent-based paint

Polystyrene does not rot or take up moisture, but it does not stand what timber stands. Propolis is scraped cold and flat with a plastic or wooden tool: a metal blade bites into the wall. Routine cleaning is by hand or with steam; after disease, the manufacturer allows 4 % caustic soda, a dishwasher tablet in 5 litres of water or Virkon® S, as per label. Never a blowtorch: a flame melts it in seconds. It comes white and unpainted, and must be painted before first use because sunlight degrades EPS: water-based exterior or polyurethane paint with UV protection, outside only, ideally two coats and a light colour in hot climates; no enamel or solvent.

04 · FLOOR AND TIE-DOWN

Open mesh all year, and a strap from day one

The floor is the system’s light base: the mesh is open to the ground, with no tray and no way to close it; what falls, falls out. If your management needs the floor closed in winter or a tray to count varroa drop, this system does not do it. The floor rests on the box without locking to it, and with five kilos of hive that calls for a strap or a stone. Spacers do not come either: in the brood box, Hoffman frames space themselves; in the super, where many run eight or nine frames for thicker comb, you need castellated spacers or clips.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

It takes Dadant US frames of 48 × 30 cm in the brood box and 48 × 16 cm in the half super. For the queen excluder, flat 10-frame plastic excluders that cover the mouth of the box work (the brand’s own measures 42 × 50.6 cm). Roofs, feeders and floors have to be BeeBox: the outer footprint of 55 × 46 cm is not that of a timber hive.

⚠ PRECAUTIONS

Flame melts polystyrene and solvents dissolve it: no blowtorch and no enamel, and a lit smoker is never set down on the box. Because it weighs so little, tie it down: wind tips it over.